One of my favorites…

“You learn to see by practice. It’s just like playing tennis, you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can’t be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.” – Eliot Porter

In less then ten days…

I will be married! I am getting both very excited and very anxious. It has been a busy couple months for me, and I will be glad to be married and honeymooning in Hawaii soon! As much as I have found this to be an exciting time in my life, I will be ok when things settle down and I am not devoting most of my free time to wedding planning anymore…..and can get out and take more pictures. I have missed being more active in photography, and will be so excited to have the time to take more pictures and soon have a new website. So many good things happening, and I feel so lucky.

Here are few pictures I took on a quick garden break from wedding planning:

Now it is Spring!!

It is a very exciting time for pictures. Despite how busy I have been with grad school, wedding planning, and work, I have gotten out to take some new pictures. I am really enjoying all of the flowers that are starting to come out. I am also excited to be out again, shooting pictures of horses. It’s nice when the light and the air start to change. There is a real freedom in it.

Is it Spring yet?

Honeymoon

So this post only has a little to do with pictures – Mike (my super duper fiance) and I booked our honeymoon. We are going to Hawaii! I am very excited about getting some time off from work and going somewhere I have never been. I am sure there will be ample opportunities for pictures. I am already starting to research the places that would be fun for us to visit and would make for some good pictures. So exciting!

Website Update

So, my website is officially down, with a shiny, new holding page put up in its place. My husband-to-be, Mike, and a friend of his are working on a redesign for my site that will hopefully make it not only look even better and more professional, but also allow me to edit the content with ease. I am very excited about the prospect of being able to change the galleries on my own and keep my site updated. It’s bad when your “about” page says you are 24 years old and you are actually 28 (LOL)! It may be a couple months until my new site is up, but I know it will be well worth the wait. In the meantime, I am continuing to build my portfolio, re-write my website content, and think out the galleries that I would like on my site.

Change can be exciting. Oh, yes.

Table Top

Lately, I have been experimenting with some “table top” studio shots. I am trying to learn more about studio lighting and figured the best way to really understand lighting is to practice on the small scale. Here are some of my newer experiments (more on my flickr site):

Time Off/Time On

I recently took some time off from photography – at least in any professional context. Part of it is that I really haven’t had the time. Work/internship, finishing dissertation, getting a new puppy, and wedding planning has been all-consuming lately. It has felt like something is missing, though. I want to continue building my portfolio and making images that, if nothing else, I like. I often wonder if other people, who lead double lives as photographers, often find that this happens to them. They get caught up with life stuff, and making pictures falls by the way side.

Either way, I want to get back to it all. I am working to have my website redesigned and updated. I have some ideas for new images – pictures made in studio. And I have some travel planned for the not-too-distant-future. So, hopefully, all of my other projects and responsibilities will get back in check, and I will have some opening to make photography a bigger priority in my life again.

Maine

Had a really relaxing break. Took a couple pictures that I am proud of. Fell in a pond taking this shot.

The Saga Continues

I got my response from Trevillion…..all of my pictures were rejected. When I emailed Trevillion to ask for feedback on my pictures, they said:

They are lovely pictures but just did not have the atmosphere and mood that we look for for our main market fiction book covers. Also, landscapes do not actually sell that well and we have thousands of really superb ones already.

Best wishes , Michael Trevillion

So, I spent a couple days being upset about it and had thoughts of giving up on my pursuit of professional photography all together. Then I reflected on the feedback I had received and reviewed again the pictures I had sent. They were pretty much all landscape. It made me think a lot of about how I find safety in pictures of animals and landscapes. Trevillion seems to be looking for creative pictures of people that could fit the content of a book, or are looking for pictures of objects or specific places. I didn’t really send them any of that….mostly because, with few exceptions, those are not the types of pictures I take. I don’t really do many model shoots and always feel awkward telling a model what to do…interacting while behind the camera. This is funny, since I have no problem in this role as a therapist….asking highly personal things, directing people on how to feel better and create change. In that role, I feel very comfortable. In the role of photographer (even in calling myself a photographer), I feel a bit like it is a lie….like I don’t yet know enough or am not yet capable enough to make professional looking images that warrants the title of photographer. At the same time, I keep looking to the outside world for validation on my work. Like being part of a stock photography house would transform me into a REAL photographer (or booking more jobs or getting published, etc., etc.). I’m not sure when it stopped being enough that I liked the pictures I was making and began to need other people to like them and tell me so. Now, I don’t even think that is enough. I need other professionals and publishers to tell me what I do is enough.

I know this is the wrong attitude to have about it all. I thought giving up Flickr would help me to focus more on my own personal vision of what my photography should be, but I guess maybe I was just projecting my own hang-ups on Flickr. I gave up Flickr, and then didn’t do the work of changing my own mindset about my work.

I know the only thing to do now is get out and shoot. Shoot everything and anything and try to refrain from too much judgement. I also need to continue to take more risks without getting too concerned about what the outcomes of those risks will be. Asking random people if I can take their picture, just so I can get better at the interaction piece that makes for the best candid pictures. I need to set up shoots with real models. I need to continue to experiment with lighting. I need to take on professional jobs even if I don’t feel completely confident at them yet. I know I have more in me and that by staying where it is safe, my work isn’t going to change or improve. I’m sure I will need to face a lot more rejection and failures in order to learn and progress. I may make it at stock photography yet….it just may be further away than I would like it to be.